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In Time

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The mutual condition

of our heritage. The thump-thump

in your thigh. Thin as a warrior

of Japanese fortune and eyes

rustling like wool in the wind.

 

At bed time, the cockroaches are my cousins

and the movement of your housecoat is my water.

I found a necklace centuries old.

You told me you were not ready

to paint the autumn gardens or do cartwheels

over a cliff. The hope that bled

from your belly, and the seas

of men’s and women’s breasts that

you floated through, like Adam awakened

from paradise, hungering for that one, strong connection,

was like me in the winters of my adolescent youth,

was the India I never visited or the Russian squares

I buried my imagination in.

 

I am red as cinnamon candy, hoping you’ll have me

like the first day our hands joined and the bells of trinity sang

a melody to finally, resolutely live for.

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Copyright © 2000 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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.First published in “Poetryrepairs, # 220”  January 2016

http://www.poetryrepairs.com/v16/007.html

http://www.poetryrepairs.com/v16/c01.html

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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“Allison Grayhurst intertwines a potent spirituality throughout her work so that each poem is not simply a statement or observation, but a revelation that demands the reader’s personal involvement. Grayhurst’s poetic genius is profound and evident. Her voice is uniquely authentic, undeniable in its dignified vulnerability as it is in its significance,” Kyp Harness, singer/songwriter, author.

“Allison Grayhurst’s poems are like cathedrals witnessing and articulating in unflinching graphic detail the gritty angst and grief of life, while taking it to rare clarity, calm and comfort. Grayhurst’s work is haunting, majestic and cleansing, often leaving one breathless in the wake of its intelligence, hope, faith and love amidst the muck of life. Many of Allison Grayhurst’s poems are simply masterpieces. Grayhurst’s poetry is a lighthouse of intelligent honour… indeed, intelligence rips through her work like white water,” Taylor Jane Green, Registered Spiritual Psychotherapist and author.

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